Rock/Stone

To see how this works, take a jar and put small and large stones or marbles in it. Give it a couple of shakes, and see what happens. The small stones or marbles will go to the bottom and this leaves the larger ones on top. Thus it looks like the larges rocks are moving up, when actually the small ones are moving down because the small ones can travel in the smaller voids.

So enjoy picking your rocks every spring!

I picked pickup truck loads of rocks out of this field right after it was last plowed. About ten loads out of a 15 acre pasture. Grass was planted and nothing else done to the field for ten years except mowing. No livestock. I find it hard to believe that frost pushes them up, but I don't have a better explaination other than my old neighbor's "the field just grows them!" All of the corner posts in this area used to be made out of rocks stacked in cages of field fence. Many are still standing.

I don't mind them so much now, except when I stub my toe on one! :-0

OK-AL

What are these rock things you are talking about?

If you don't want to fight rocks, move to Kansas.

If you don't believe that the freeze cycle has anything to do with it, just visit a tennis court that had the fence posts concreted at the surface. I have replaced many tennis courts in Maryland and tried several methods, but a concrete fence post foundation that does not go below the frost line will heave every time. We have even tried to mushroom the bottom of the hole to prevent this lifting effect then pave over the concrete and seal around the posts. In a few years of serious frost, you still get posts that heave.

It's just an opinion and I'm sure someone in Florida will say that they don't have frost but still have rock problems. I'm not saying that it is the only or even primary cause, but I believe it certainly facilitates the rock migration. How else would a field that has been plowed only 6-8" deep for over 100 years continue to "grow" rocks? You should eventually be able to totally eradicate the rocks from that top 8" of soil.

Bottom line is if you don't want rocks, don't turn the soil.

I wish you northerners would quite stealing my rocks.
SORRY just in one of those moods today!!!!

I'm on a central Indiana farm that's been in my family over 90 years, and 5 generations of us have picked up rocks! Frost is certainly a factor, but the ground here seldom freezes deeper than 40", even in a cold winter. Frost may not be doing much to rocks that are several feet deep.

Another curious thing to me, is that the little ones and the big ones seem to rise at approximately the same rate, or we would (I think) begin to run out of one size after a while! This farm's been tilled for over 150 years, and it doesn't have a big rock problem compared to a lot of places. But, there are rock piles on every farm in the community, and many of those rock piles are over 100 years old. The rocks we get today seem to be pretty much the size, type, and shape of the ones my grandfather used to pick up.

Maybe it's as simple as my neighbor throwing his over the fence....